So, Rove talks to a reporter and never mentions her name. Just remember, Cooper never published his story. How can Rove be the leak if Cooper didn't publish?
Good point. The focus of any of this must be on who Novak's source was.
If they locked up anyone who spoke to the media on "background" in D.C., half of the city would be in the clink.
Meanwhile, the NYT was 100% behind leaking classified info in the Pentagon Papers case and cheered Deepthroat like a conquering Caesar.
I'm slightly confused by one point though. -IF- Rove said "Wilson's wife," is that supposed to be different from saying her name?
"Joe Wilson's wife works for the CIA". Sounds to me like Rove clearly identified her as working for the CIA. I don't understand the difference between that and saying her name. Sounds rather like Clintonian parsing to me.
Cooper published. Miller didn't. And subsequent events proved Wilson was a liar in that story to Cooper.
And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, which is used to build nuclear devices.Here is the relevant portion of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq (specifically on page 39):In an interview with TIME, Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current president's father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Africa. "That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the case," Wilson told TIME. "I met with between six and eight analysts and operators from CIA and elsewhere [before the Feb 2002 trip]. None of the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to send me. This is a smear job."
"Interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate tht his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip [in a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations dated February 12, 2002]. The CPD reports officer told committee staff that the former ambassador's wife says, "my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."
Cooper published not one but two stories and had multiple sources. You're thinking of Miller. She did not write a story on this.